Question for Teachers and Longtime Students

Wai Jia: The Kung Fu Forum Kung Fu Forum
1

I would one day like to teach kung fu as a profession, but one concern always arises everytime i start making steps towards that goal. Can i teach kung fu and make enough income to survive without “selling out” as they say to bring in enough students? I am a serious kung fu practitioner and i cant really see myself effectively teaching more than a handful of students each class without sacrificing the attention they deserve and need to progress. The only way i could see it working is to have many classes each day filtering the student base through only handfuls at a time.

But really how many students are needed at a reasonable price? Say you have 60 students taught at different times throughout the day and on rotating days of the week and you charge a reasonable $50 a month. Thats only $3000 a month. Subtract rent for your studio and you arent left with much. So tell me, how do you sifus out there survive on just teaching?

2

Look at rents around where you are…

figure in how much you need to make to live.

Insurance.

Other overheads (gear, ads, etc.)

Also think:
100 students divided into 6-8 classes is still a good ratio.

3

Be a man.

Get a real job and teach in your free time.

:wink:

4

Man 100 students sounds like a lot, but i guess if thats all i do all day, its not too bad. Classes could be about 1.5 hours with 10 or 12 students in each class. That gives me 5 or 6 pairs to work with which seems manageable to give them enough attention. that is still close to a 9 or 10 hour work day. The most i could see myself charging per month would be about $75. I have been to classes that charged $100 or more a month and i feel that such a price would really prevent some dedicated students from be able to study.

5

dwid, i hear ya man. But there are teachers out there that do it full time and im just trying to see how thats possible without sacrificing quality. I mean, is being somewhat famous and traveling and doing seminars for $500 a pop the only way to do it?

6

Around my area karate classes and tkd classes are around 60-75 bucks a month, and then most school let you come as many classes as you want since the fee is so much.

Of course I don’t train around my area, I train in Muay Thai mostly now.

Hope my info helps.:frowning:

7

I was just busting your chops, man.

I think the problem is that good martial arts teachers will almost always be underpaid. You can probably do okay, but you’re not going to be wealthy, and you’ll probably be hard-pressed to set enough aside to ultimately retire comfortably.

It sucks, but the financially successful teacher who hasn’t sacrificed quality is by far the exception to the rule.

8

if your good and have a good reputation and good kun-fu then YES!

my shifu has only ever taught kung-fu for many years (partly as the communists banned him from getting a job many years ago when he was in china).

he makes an ok living, not bad in fact, and he certainly hasnt sold out!

9

So does anyone have any idea just what the rent would be like on a hall/studio that could be used as a full time training place in north america? obviously it will vary alot ut how much are we looking at having to make just to cover the rent?

10

my sifu teaches in his house :stuck_out_tongue:

11

In most case(unless your totally corporate) you will teach for the love of teaching and not for the cash. And usually have a wife that works full time. Unless you teach an abundance of kids.

12

We were paying 3850/month at our old place…

13

Originally posted by norther practitioner
We were paying 3850/month at our old place…
dayyyum! :eek:

14

The reality if teaching is this:
there is a difference between being commercial and being proffessional. You don’t have to sacrifice quality.

There will always be an inner circle of hardcore, dedicated students-those are the ones-others will come and go, they will pay your rent=face it, I have students who are dedicated and can’t pay-they have a scholarship-you give a little, don’t be greedy, it’s not about the money-that will come-ONLY if you have good exciting classes, and a well planned curriculum.
Students quit for two reasons(barring they move, get sick and die, or lose their job) they are either overwhelmed, or “underwhelmed” meaning it’s too challenging, or not challenging enough. You have to work with them to decide their individual needs and make it work-I give mini-privates, no charge to get them ccaught up, or I work on special things just for them, whatever works. They need to know that you care. read that again, say it out loud.
EVERY STUDENT HAS A SIGN AROUND THEIR NECK THAT READS,
“LET ME KNOW YOU CARE” otherwise, they will slowly drift out and leave.
Here’s another rule: 10+1 =for every one person who voices a complaint, ten others said nothing and left.
You are the last to know. Then it’s too late to do damage control.
Listen to your students, check your ego and hear what they want.
That doesn’t mean give them Ninja parties, or no stance training, but keep them motivated. Remember those few hardcore guys (you are probably one of these) are self=motivated, and are there for the sheer love of Gung-Fu, no matter what-but you need to teach everyone. Sometimes the ones who aren’t dedicated in the beginning can develop into your core students, but if you don’t work with them, it will never happen.
A hundred students don’t walk in the door in a week. As you sign up one, three leave. Lock the back door. 30 students at 100 a month is 3000 dollars a month-minus rent, electricity,heat in the winter, AC in the summer-there is maybe a two week window when you don’t use either-don’t bank on it.=phone, yellow pages (go small-these ads are very expensive and can put you under=fast) any supplies, insurance, your initial set-up, and whatever else comes up.
Start small, don’t bite off more than you can chew-teach part-time at a dance studio, get a student base, THEN open up. That way you start with students and you won’t close next month, when all these bills come in at once. Oh, did you remember your own rent, car, insurance, utilities,..um food? You do eat, don’t you?
Am I scaring you? I hope not. I have had my school for about 20 years or so, and there is nothing I would rather do. I love going to “work”. And I don’t have to worry about putting anything away for my retirement-'cause us Gung-Fu guys teach until we drop dead at 120!
Find the guys who are doing it and making it work-model them-(that means copy) Tat Mau-Wong, Yang Jwing-Ming, Steve LaVallee-he teaches Kenpo-BUT-his guys are good, they work hard-his Black Belts go through months of bootcamp before they test-three mile running, situps, pushups, they are not a belt factory, and he has three schools with about 500 students in each one-do the math. He’s not driving a rambler.
Good luck, call me if you need to.-Rik

15

keep a day job. teach from your house as a hobby twice a week.

get a bunch of money without overhead costs and challenges from ppl who walk in on the street.

tax free cash.

make yourself look like a nonmcdojo teacher b/c teaching from home means you are underground and unique and hard to find and it is a privilage to learn from you.

anytime you decide to quit teaching you can without worrying about lease contracts.

you can still make them sign waivers too. greatness :slight_smile:

16

Seminars!

17

Originally posted by MasterKiller
dayyyum! :eek:

That’s why it is our “old” place…

18

empty cup-nice idea..but…do NOT do this!!!
I also thought this would be great. I’ll buy a house, gut the first floor and make it a kwoon, and live upstairs with my family. Perfect. um, nope. perfect recipe for disaster. I don’t know how long you’ve been into Gung-Fu, or teaching, but from experience-(over 30 yrs in MA, over 20 yrs teaching) there are alot of flakes that sign up at Martial Arts schools. Some are psychopaths, some are violent, some are just plain weird-(did you ever look at the people who go to Rennaisance Fairs, or Star Trek conventions?)
You do NOT want these people coming to your house. What if they have an outburst or other incident where you need to expell them from your school? Do you really want all these strangers coming to your house? Yeah, it sounds nice, but unless you are going to hand pick a select small group of disciples, I would think twice.

19

You need to do a serious business analysis…

First, realize that your mainstay of group classes only happen at night after working hours.

People tend to NOT come to classes on Friday, Sunday, and some are very picky about Saturday - you need to know what times work for people.

So, with a Mon-Thur - 4 evenings a week for major classes.

Now you have to figure in what time classes can start.

20 years ago in my city, you could start classes around 6 PM - people could make it by then from work…

Now, it is closer to 7 PM. Now you CAN do kids classes earlier. So you have to determine what a workable class schedule is

In reality, you have time for a maximum of 2 adult classes in an evening and at that you are teaching until 9 or 9:30.

The next group is kids. They are in school until 4 so you can have a kids class that begins around 4:30 PM until 5:30 or 6. If you do the thing of a bus and pick them up from school, you can charge more and increase students…but you have the insurance expense and the expense of a van.

Daytime…you can only get those that don’t work - retirees, housewives, people that work nights… Limited population.

You have to be able to teach something they can do like Taijiquan.

Add all of that together and you get a maximum number of class hours per week.

Now you have rent, utilities, phone, advertising, and INSURANCE (trust me, you need insurance).

You also have to consider the space you have…

If you do the math and need an average of 20 people in a class…but your facility is crowded with 15, you will fail from the beginning.

You should NEVER count in private lessons in your calcualations on income. Those are for more money but they should be considered extra…something you can’t depend on.

When you do all of the financials and - if you still want to do it, you then have to decide how you handle payment - contracts or none, refund policies, etc…

You have to keep the business aspect completely separate from the teaching aspect. Quality of teaching has nothing to do with whether or not a person paid their fees…

Finally, the realities of the world is that you pretty much have to have an easy class and then a die hard class to stay open. You can’t be commercially viable teaching everyone like they will be inheritors of the style.

It is VERY difficult to make big money teaching.

20

Deciding to teach full time is running a small business.

So besides being a kung fu teacher you also become:

Bookkeeper
Promotions Specialist
Memebership Manager
Customer Service Agent
Quality Control Manager
Janitor
Secretary
Lease Holder
Liable Party
Construction Worker/Contractor
Supplies Manager
Utilities Manager
Security Guard

And then you have to be in the right physical condition and state of mind to teach all of your classes.

Perhaps if you are interested in teaching you might become a full time school teacher? You can run after school programs for kids and / or adults and get the summers off for training and traveling. Physical Education can be a great career, and you can teach all the way up to the Doctoral level. You’d be amazed at how similar teaching martial arts can be to phys ed if you develop the right kind of program. And if you teach in colleges you can actually offer full courses in your martial art of interest. I recommend this route because it’s working out really well for me. It’s much more financially beneficial than running a small private school full time, there’s less liability and no overhead. And did I mention the three months vacation every single year? I am in the process of getting a master’s degree in phys ed and my focus through the entire endeavor has been the martial arts. Physical educators really respect the arts and are looking for more of us to join the cause.